Police Publish 'An Introduction To PEDO BEAR'

According to this article, the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Department knows that Pedobear is an Internet joke, but that hasn't stopped them from trying to warn the public about him. Their most recent tool in the fight against internet memes is this public safety information bulletin entitled: "An Introduction to PEDO BEAR." I look forward to the bulletin warning parents about the dangers of children playing in Chocolate Rain.

Comments

really?

[Pojut]

"We know that this is a joke, but we're going to approach it as if it's a serious thing."

Your tax dollars at work, people.

Re:really?

[bistromath007]

Actually, they should only know that it is a joke, because that second part is a pile of crap that the police basically made up so they wouldn't look stupid for kicking PedoBear out of ComicCon.

Re:really?

[bluefoxlucid]

I don't get why people try to protect children. Lock the god damn things in a cage or throw them all in the deepest hole you can find, just get them the fuck away from me.

Re:really?

[evanism]

I've had a few friends who have been cops, and while being nice guys and girls they can be universally described as totally ignorant to the point of actual stupidity. It always stunned me at how profoundly they misunderstood the simplest things. They could not and would not contextualise anything.

Eveything was either breaking the law (however they chose to define it) or potentially breaking the law.

Needless to say, I have dumped all 5 of them knowing they would end up in trouble, psychotic or corrupt. I was 100% right on every one of them.

Re:really?

[Hoi Polloi]

Their next pamphlets will be titled "Warning Parents! Ceiling Kitty Is Watching Your Family Masturbate!" and "Are Your Kids Getting Rickrolled?"

Re:really?

[MozeeToby]

I would argue that it's a useless warning, in that 99.99% of the time people see Pedobear, it's as a joke. It would be like saying that many domestic abusers wear baseball caps, therefor you should be on the lookout for baseball caps because any time you see one someone will beat your spouse when you're not looking.

Re:really?

[Chibi Merrow]

PedoBear may be a joke, but dressing like PedoBear in a mask and costume and handing out candy is an inappropriate joke to play on young children (or their parents)

Why? I can understand the organizers of ComicCon asking the guy to go away, but why should the police be able to tell someone to go away if the organizers haven't asked them to? I coulda sworn we had freedom of speech around here...

Re:really?

[DrgnDancer]

But as someone else pointed out, using this as a "warning sign" of any sort is pointless. If some pedos have started using it, that's all well and good; but the vast majority of its use is as a joke or insult. Therefore the vast majority of the times you see it there's no hidden meaning. It's like saying that anytime you see someone with a cell phone you should be worried, because occasionally people use cell phones to sell drugs.

Again paranoia rules the roost

[antifoidulus]

This constant paranoia over pedophilia has gotten insane. While it is a terrible crime, the odds of your kid getting killed by an SUV dwarf the odds that they will get molested by a stranger(some studies suggest that the child knows the perpetrator about 90% of the time). Meanwhile fearful parents park their kids in front of some sort of glowing rectangle and let them eat themselves to an early grave because a guaranteed life of obesity seems somehow better than a slim(really slim if your properly educate and observe the children) chance that they will be molested.

Furthermore the whole police state mentality is driving people who have these urges further and further underground. Dan Savage had a really interesting call on his podcast a few months back about someone who said he couldn't control his attraction to children. He hadn't molested anyone yet but he was scared he might, but thanks to the way the law is written now, if he seeks help the psychiatrist MUST report him to the cops where he will be thrown in prison and then booted out into a world where he is a pariah just for THOUGHTS he may have had. So instead of this man being able to seek professional help(which could include chemical castration), he is now forced to battle his demons on his own and is probably MORE likely to molest a kid than if he had been able to get help. But somehow Americans think that if they can use the police to arrest someone, they should no matter what the actual or perceived crime is.

Don't get me wrong, I'm certainly not trying to minimize molestation, it's a real and terrible thing. But being irrationally afraid of the problem isn't going to make it go away and really isn't going to leave your children in a very healthy state when they grow up.

Re:Again paranoia rules the roost

[AnonymousClown]

Don't get me wrong, I'm certainly not trying to minimize molestation, it's a real and terrible thing.

I find rather annoying that you had to be that explicit and make that statement even here on Slashdot.

Re:Again paranoia rules the roost

[the_womble]

Not only to kids usually know the abuser, the abuser is usually a member of their family.

Re:Again paranoia rules the roost

[Anonymous Coward]

Most studies on the topic only question those cases that are referred to law enforcement.

Population samples are much harder to find and consistently indicate minor long-term problems, but in aggregate, those are minimal... roughly as strong a correlation as growing up black, or poor.

Very few studies (only 3 IIRC) even allow the participants to specify that they feel the experience was positive. Those that do tend to have a not insubstantial number of responses that indicate this outcome.

Overall, the effect is a net-negative, certainly indicating a relative need to curtail the behavior, but it is NOT pervasive, nor it is necessarily automatically harmful.

I should know, I was a "victim" and have participated in victim counseling groups that were just awful. They tried to TRAIN us to blame all of our problems on the abuse, and many people bought it.

I've recently made contact with my "abuser" again, and we have become friends. I realized that using him as a scapegoat was hurting me, so instead I talked to him honestly about the things I liked and didn't like and have since gone on to meet a number of other former "victims" who are in the same boat.

My best friend was abused by a totally creepy guy for over 10 years and while he wishes it hadn't happened, he also recognizes that, frankly, it wasn't as big a deal. He has way more issues today stemming from his mother being overly-protective after this was all discovered, than he ever did with some weird guy tugging on his penis once a month.

Reading about the topic is something I do often and I know many many "victims". Those who are raped... as in... pinned down and penetrated... they have SERIOUS issues with trust and other things, but the majority of us who were gently diddled by someone we trusted... meh. Frankly, not something we should condone, but also not really a big deal.

I don't understand the paranoia. It's so unproductive as to be almost absurd.

Re:Again paranoia rules the roost

[Tetsujin]

Well, since you have a few anecdotes to share, I guess that means the reams of studies and statistics demonstrating the very real, long term, and harmful consequences of sexual abuse of children is invalidated!

Don't be a douche. He was talking about underage sexual activity, not sexual abuse. The law doesn't distinguish the two, partly because it's hard to do so. But if you have have studies and statistics about the long-term aftereffects of consensual underage sex that you'd care to (not) cite, that could be different, you know?

Re:sadly

[Scrameustache]

PEDO BEAR is becoming a tool for pedophile to use.

I have doubts about the certainty of your fears. Do you have proof? You wouldn't just be saying that based on absolutely nothing, would you?

Re:Forget chocolate rain

[Jawnn]

Check out the dangers of playing in sprinklers.

How uneducated can you get?

Very, but they still get to vote. Three guesses as to which way "they" lean.
Seriously, I want to laugh (and I do) but this (TFA and the sprinkler idiot) is troubling. Not just because these cops are stupid, but because it reflects a general failure of critical thinking across our society. The intellectual capacity required for a reasonable skepticism seems to be escaping a larger and larger swath of the populace, a swath which apparently now takes in those in important public safety roles. We're doomed.

Re:Forget chocolate rain

[spun]

I'll bite. Which way do cops lean? IMHO they lean towards "more jobs for cops with better pay and less work." This only looks right wing because their interests coincide with those of the right wing when it comes to "more jobs for cops with better pay and less work." Are cops for a balanced budget? Not if it means cuts for them. Are they for states rights? Not hardly! They are for cops' rights, they don't really care if they get them from the fed or the state. Socially, they may be somewhat conservative, especially when it comes to punishing criminals (of course.) And how do cops feel about unions? Great! As long as it is their union. Your union is useful as a cop employment program, you and or the boss need protection from each other, right? Overtime, baby!

A lot of what looks like partisan politics on bothy sides is actually lazy, selfish politics and people only tend to agree with party planks that directly benefit them.

Re:Forget chocolate rain

[FuckingNickName]

Have they ever enforced a drug law? Completely fucking corrupt.

You're an idiot. The police should not selectively enforce the law. In fact, the obvious way of being a corrupt policeman is to selectively enforce the law.